La Solidaridad

(Paliwanag mula sa Patnugutan: Ang artikulong ito'y salin ni Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon sa "Nuestro Propositos," ang editoryal sa unang isyu ng La Solidaridad noong ika-15 ng Pebrero 1889. Sa ating pagbabasa't pagbabalik-tanaw, maitatanong marahil natin sa ating mga sarili: Ano na ba ang nabago mula noon? Ano ang mga nararapat pang baguhin? Sapagkat kakatwang maihahalintulad ang mga suliraning kinakaharap natin ngayon sa mga dinanas ng ating mga ninuno noong dakong una. Bawat buwan ay maglalathala kami ng mga napapanahon at tumpak na mga lathalaing sinulat ng ating mga bayani mahigit isandaang taon na ang nakalilipas. Sa gayo'y kolektibo nating masisipat ang ating nakaraan, at sama-sama nating maitutuwid ang direksiyon ng ating layag sa ating paglalakbay tungo sa bagong milenyum.)

OUR AIMS

We shall be remiss in a duty, a very fundamental act of courtesy, if at the start of our task we do not extend sincere greetings publicly to the Spanish press in general and to the press of Barcelona in particular. Confident are we that they will receive our modest publication with kindness and affection.

In times like ours when there are newspapers to suit everybody's taste and reviews with all kinds of information, it is not correct to say that we join the press to fill a vacuum. We only aspire and hope for a place along the line so that we can share with them the agonies of the struggle, the anguish of battle which increasingly sustain with audacious courage the Spanish press.

Modest, very modest indeed are our aspirations. Our programs aside from being harmless is very simple; to fight all reaction, to hinder all steps backward, to applaud and to accept all liberal ideas, and to defend progress; in brief, to be a propagandist above all of ideals of democracy so that these might reign over all nations here and beyond the seas.

The aims therefore of La Solidaridad are defined: to gather, to collect liberal ideas which are daily exposed in the camps of politics, in the fields of science, arts, letters, commerce, agriculture, and industry.

We shall also discuss all problems which deal with the general interest of the nation, seeking solutions that are purely national and democratic.

The Spanish overseas provinces will find in La Solidaridad a zealous supporter of their just and lawful aspirations, an organ which will voice their needs and make them public, which will expose the evils which afflict those faraway places so that these conditions may be remedied.

It will be fair in discussing and judging the political and economic problems which becloud Cuban and Puerto Rican skies.

It will expose fearlessly and dispassionately the disease that corrupts those societies, all phases of corruption which undermine justice and retard the economic developments of our precious Antilles whose present state and whose future are the concern of all parties and administrators.

Its political program therefore with respect to the colonies is not limited to any particular field nor to any school of thought.

We shall pay special attention to the Philippines because those islands need the most help having been deprived of representation in the Cortes. We shall thus fulfill our patriotic duty in the defense of democracy in those islands.

That nation of eight million souls should not and must not be the exclusive patrimony of theocracy and conservatism.

In the beginning of our constitutional period, the Philippine Archipelago was represented in our Cortes. Her voice was heard. She was consulted in the formation of fundamental law of the state in 1812. But in 1837 she was dispossessed of this national right which was taken from her with the pretext that it was being done for the good of the people and the country's welfare.

From then on, all political parties seem tacitly agreed to ignore, to forget, to be indifferent to our overseas possessions. And if the need to study and effect remedies to evils which affect our home-country to its very core should come up, everyone enjoins caution because the belief is that the evil is so deep-rooted that it is past cure.

Other nations employ different procedures. The British press and that beyond the Pyrenees lavish praise on the development of the natural resources of their possessions. Spain on the other hand sleeps and lets foreigners develop all her agricultural, industrial and commercial interests_all, except monastic interest.

Indifference to our Archipelago will not be good for Spain's integrity in the Philippines. The country is attuned to progress. The heart of the nation longs for legitimate hopes of a better life and we do not believe in any political theory which would discuss such pleas with the classic "We shall see."

We believe therefore that by offering to study the problems mentioned above and those relating to them, we shall be, in our humble way, of service to the nation and her institutions. THE STAFF

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